(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of batteries and more particularly to the field of lithium polymer batteries.
(2) Description of the Related Art
With portable electronics such as cell phones, hearing aids and the like, the utility of the device is often limited by the battery's finite quantity of energy that it is able to store. One method of increasing the amount of energy contained within a battery is to make it larger. This is often difficult given that batteries are manufactured in various standard sizes. As such, available space within a battery-powered device that does not conform to the standard battery geometries and sizes is often left unused. With the advent of lithium polymer batteries, it has been suggested that such a battery might be formed to fit the available space within a device regardless of the geometry of the space. This space-filling concept will be referred to as a conformal battery. While such lithium polymer conformal batteries have been suggested, due to manufacturing difficulties this conformal characteristic has not yet been implemented. Thus, lithium polymer batteries are available only in relatively standard prismatic shapes. (Commonly available rectangular lithium polymer batteries are called prismatic.) These prismatic shapes in many instances fail to utilize the full extent of the space that is available within an electronic portable device.
Development of a battery which can fit into available space, thus providing more energy and longer battery life represents a great improvement in the field of batteries and satisfies a long felt need of the battery engineer.